[Homestead] James. why
Sage Austin | Eureka! Design
eureka at hctc.net
Wed Feb 4 14:58:13 EST 2009
Plants are the ultimate chemists and form very complex communities we
are only beginning to understand. We have lots of unsightly ball moss
growing in our trees, but when I pull a piece off tiny bits of bark
follow that no doubt would be an entry point for worse.
Something like one to two pounds of our body weight is bacteria which
has co-evolved with human beings and are an integral part of our body
ecology. Studies are now showing people from other countries that still
have intestinal worms do not get inflammatory bowel disease. It's when
we disturb these relationships that things can go badly.
According to this, sounds like something beneficial is supposed to be
coming from the relationship, a taking from the plant, a mixing of
phytochemicals which are then leached back to the plant by rain through
the soil. I know James is convinced otherwise, but perhaps something
else was attacking James' trees and the lichen were trying to help? It's
such a complex relationship... easier for me to believe it is
misunderstood instead of evil.
--Sage
bobf wrote:
> Sage, so what does that mean as far as doing anything with the lichens?
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> --- On Wed, 2/4/09, Sage Austin | Eureka! Design <eureka at hctc.net> wrote:
>
>
>> From: Sage Austin | Eureka! Design <eureka at hctc.net>
>> Subject: Re: [Homestead] James. why
>> To: homestead at lists.ibiblio.org
>> Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 11:56 AM
>> "Lichens growing on trees (and throughout the
>> ecosystem), each posessing
>> their own unique chemistries, also leach substantial
>> quantities of
>> secondary metabolites, which each combine in unique ways
>> with those of
>> their host plants. Lichens are a symbiosis of two
>> organisms, a fungal
>> mycelia and an alga, that come together to form one plant.
>> In a sense
>> they are a kind of mycelia that can live outside the soil;
>> the alga
>> protects the internal mycelial core (from such things as
>> drying out)
>> much as the soil does. The exterior alga and the interior
>> mycelial core
>> possess their own unique biochemistries while, in
>> combination, they
>> produce synergistic compounds unique to their combination
>> as a lichen.
>> In the case of Usnea lichens the exterior covering is
>> highly
>> antibacterial while the inner mycelial core, composed of
>> complex
>> polysaccharides, is strongly immune potentiating. Lichens
>> release these
>> compounds into their tree hosts to support their hosts'
>> health and also
>> leach the into the system during rainfall. The tree lichens
>> growing in a
>> hectare (2.5 acres) of oak woods can weigh 1,500 pounds and
>> their
>> chemistries significantly alter throughfall water
>> chemsitry"
>>
>> Johannes Knops, et al., "The influence of piphytic
>> lichens on the
>> nutrient cycling of an oak wood," in Ecological
>> Monographs (May 1996)
>> www.nothernlights.com, excerpted from Stephen Harrod
>> Buhner's "Lost
>> Language of Plants".
>>
>> --Sage
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